Interview Question: Describe a Day in the Life

by Charles Chen ·
Published February 15, 2017
· Updated February 16, 2017

I recently conducted an interview for a managerial position and one question I wish I had asked was “Describe a day in the life of this role”.

I thought of this later as I was driving, but I really like this question for a managerial or leadership type role since it allows the interviewer to hear the candidate’s understanding of the responsibilities and expectations of the role. On the flip side, it also allows the interviewer to clearly communicate expectations and responsibilities to close any gaps or identify discrepancies.

A discussion around this hypothetical exposes bits and pieces of a candidate’s experience as well such as how the candidate has contributed to teams in the past, how the candidate structures a work day, and the type of workload a candidate has had in the past and how he or she expects that workload to be in a new position.

It achieves the above in relatively concrete terms as it asks a candidate to lay out how they imagine they will function in a particular role and environment and how they envision their time being spent.